Tuesday, January 4, 2011

2010: A Year in Review

2010 was an interesting year to say the least. Not surprisingly, I spent a lot of time traveling - but I also spent a good amount of time at home - a good thing and a bad thing simultaneously.

January was spent in Cedar Rapids, IA doing my first Salome and also mourning the loss of my maternal grandfather.

February found me in chilly Boston, working on a world premiere with all the accompanying trials and tribulations.

March was spent working on a double-bill of new shows to me: Gianni Schicchi/Buoso's Ghost which reunited me with a colleague I hadn't worked with in years. This cast was addicted to Apples to Apples almost as much as my previous cast had been addicted to Trivial Pursuit.

April saw me mostly at home with a side trip to LA where I caught up with friends, ate at all my favorite restaurants, saw another Death Valley Bloom and crossed #48 off my list.

May had me completing my 365 project and happily so. I also celebrated my birthday by recording it for task #57

After recovering from June & July, I spent a week in August in Montana, spending time with extended family and standing by my cousin as one of her bridesmaids, crossing #43 off my list as well as visiting Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks for the first time in 20 years.

September found me enjoying my favorite St. Louis fall pastime, festivals. I visited the Greek Festival, Japanese Festival (twice) and the St. Louis Art Fair before heading off to work once again.

October had me half in Indianapolis doing The Mikado redux (it was to have happened in March) and spent the last 11 days of October in Beijing - crossing #60 and 62 off my list in one fell swoop. October also had me mourning the loss of my final remaining grandparent, my maternal grandmother.

November found me mostly in St. Louis with a brief jaunt to Phoenix to help Mom tie up loose ends and pack up the house. I put my work skills to good use and kept Mom and I on task - and we finished with time to spare.

December was a pretty quiet month and nothing of great significance happened. A lot of personal housekeeping, house purging and reorganization occurred while I madly tried to finish 3 baby projects (1 gigantic, two smaller) before said babies were born.

I took lots and lots of pictures even without a photography project to drive me and added a Canon G12 to my camera arsenal to replace my rarely used and mostly broken Fuji point-and-shoot.

Mom and I put my 2009 Hanukah gift to good use and made/decorated cupcakes in various forms throughout the year including two different types of dog cupcakes, black and whites, graduation caps and most recently, petit four-style cupcakes. I've gotten a dab hand at dyeing white frosting all sorts of colors.

I revised and expanded my life list again and brought the number up to 100 - my original numeric goal. I've crossed things off, including eight items in 2010, but there's many more to go.

And on the cusp of the New Year, whilst a torandic storm was brewing, I created a monster photo project to keep me busy in 2011. Let's see what the new year brings.